


There

by dandelionlust



Category: SHINee
Genre: Angst, Kibum is introspective, Light Angst, M/M, but then it wasn't, it was supposed to be happy, pre and post death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-12 17:37:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16877280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dandelionlust/pseuds/dandelionlust
Summary: There, there, there, there.  It was such a simple word, wasn’t it?





	There

**Author's Note:**

> Wow... it's certainly been a while since I uploaded anything, let alone wrote anything. Thankfully, I got a little inspiration. Hope you enjoy.

_ There, there, there, there.   _ It was such a simple word, wasn’t it?  Five letters, yet it meant so many things.  It was a direction, an action, a word to comfort someone when they were crying.   _ There, there Kibum,  _ his mother used to say when he was afraid of the monster under his bed,   _ I promise you I’ll protect you.   _ He’d unwillingly become dependent upon people’s comfort, the silent kind that came with another person sitting down on the opposite side of the couch as him.  Comfort always came out condescending when it was expressed with emotion, and he had no time to carry around any emotional baggage. God forbid, his  _ actual  _ baggage was enough weight already.

 

Jonghyun was always  _ there.   _ No matter where he turned he was always reminded of that smile, that laugh.  Sometimes it was infuriating and sometimes he just couldn’t get enough of it.  He could drown himself in Jonghyun’s waters all day, cling tight to him and pray that neither of them would move a muscle, yet he’d still want the other to be there even after the world had forced them to be productive.  As much as they whined about each other, it was still apparent that they’d never be able to live without the constant bickering, the subtle teasing that brought such wide smiles to their faces.

 

Being there meant living with every part of each other.  As much as Kibum believed he was emotionally stunted, he couldn’t help but feel the uncomfortable prick of tears every time he heard the words  _ I hate myself  _ from the other.  He’d never been an outwardly emotional person, but Jonghyun somehow knew how to turn his empathy switch on.  Sometimes he wondered if maybe he  _ was  _ a robot.  Compared to someone so beautifully emotional as Jonghyun, Kibum felt as though maybe, when he was created, someone had forgotten to add the proper amount of emotional capability.  He was like a failed cake recipe. Jonghyun always said the best cakes were the ones that didn’t turn out as planned.

 

On busy days, his presence was fleeting, but still felt.  On slow days, Kibum was so engulfed with the amount of Jonghyun’s there-ness that his senses seemed to launch into overdrive, and they drowned in each other’s love.  Quiet nights poured over wine and scented candles seemed to him like a secret escape, the alternate, fairytale ending to their forbidden romance. 

 

But life wasn’t that poetic, and never would be.

 

He didn’t even get a chance to say I love you.

 

The absence of there was like shell shock.  He felt hollow. All his life Kibum had depended on the physical presence of a few people in particular, and now no one wanted to be anywhere near anyone else.  Life had become a gaping hole of absence, of loneliness. Maybe once he would’ve enjoyed that, but not now. Not now.

 

Now was hell.

 

He let himself be consumed by work, consumed by the hollowness that ate away at his soul, tore away at his flesh.  Every morning he allowed himself to get out of bed, only for the sole purpose of adhering his daily mask onto his shell of a face.  He worked until he couldn’t remember a time when there existed at all.

 

But then he saw it.  Late at night, sitting alone on the couch and staring out the window.  The moon. The aquamarine moon.

 

_ He was there. _

 

His knees hit the soft carpet and he allowed himself to cry.

 

Seconds turned into minutes, and minutes to hours, yet he was still there.

 

_ There, there _ .   _ There, there. _

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading my lil drabble. Hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
